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A Pink Classic Quilt Tutorial

March 1, 2012

After staring at fabrics for too long trying to decide what pattern to make my baby a quilt with…I went with classic hourglass blocks. There are probably loads of good tutorials for these blocks already, but since these are one of my favorites I wrote one up for this quilt:

32 print 6″ x 6″ squares, and 32 white 6″ x 6″ squares (approx. 1 yard cut into 5 strips 6″ x the fabric width, then subcut 7 squares from each strip). For this particular quilt I used about 8 different print fabrics, and cut 4 squares from each fabric.

1. Draw a diagonal line in pencil from corner to corner on the wrong side of each white square. I know…I hate this part too….if it helps this is how I line up my squares then I draw lines on multiple squares at one time:

2. Pin a print square and a white square right sides together with the pencil line facing up. Sew 1/4″ from the line on each side ( I usually don’t pin these squares…but you should…I’m just lazy). Continue until all of the 32 print and white squares have been sewn together.

To make this process faster you can chain piece all of the squares. Sew on one side of the line on all of the squares, then without cutting the threads in between the blocks put them back through the machine and sew down the other side. Then when you’re all finished clip both threads in between each block.

3. Place a square on the cutting mat, and cut down the pencil line from corner to corner. DO NOT MOVE THE PIECES YET! ( I pulled mine apart a little just so you can see the cut)

4. Cut another diagonal line from the other corner to corner on the same square.

5. Press the triangles towards the print fabrics. You should be able to lay out 2 hourglass blocks from this one cut square:

6. Match and pin the center seams, then sew the pieces together to make 2 hourglass blocks. Press seam to either side or open.

7. Now for the fun part (not really) squaring up the blocks to 5″ x 5″. Everyone has their own method of squaring…this is how I do mine:

Align the diagonal lines of my block with the diagonal lines on my cutting mat…

Measure from the center 2 1/2″ out on one side, and trim off the excess. Do the same on the top or bottom, then you can align the edges along the grid lines and trim the remaining edges to make a 5″ block. If your mat doesn’t have these handy grid lines you’ll have to find another way, but simply measuring 2 1/2″ out from the center on each side should be fine. You can even cut more than one at a time if you’re not a perfectionist.

8. Lay the blocks out in 9 rows of 7 blocks each, rotating every other block. Sew the blocks into rows, and press the seams towards the print fabrics (that part is important so you’re seams will match up nice and tidy when sewing the rows together). Pin and sew the rows together to finish the quilt top.

Apparently it’s 5 year old boy torture to make him hold up a pink quilt…heaven forbid…you should have heard the grumbling.

*To make hourglass blocks in any size… cut your starting squares 1″ larger than you’d like the (un) finished squares to be.

* The fabrics in this quilt are Daisy Cottage by Bee in my Bonnet Designs for Riley Blake (here, here, here, here, and here), and the bright pink small floral and polka dot are Children at Play by Sarah Jane for Michael Miller.

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111 Responses to A Pink Classic Quilt Tutorial

Beautiful quilt! Love the fabrics you used! I am so in awe of accomplished quilters – getting all the corners to line up has always been a point of frustration with me. Great tutorial! Thanks for sharing.

Oh my goodness, each time you post another quilt I want to make one too!! They are all beautiful but this one is just perfect for your little girl (and I love DS's face ;o) ) Thanks for sharing and for the tutorial – which I'm now going to have to try! x

I think it is very sweet, good job. I did have to smile at the picture of your son. What a cutie pie. Poor thing, holding a pink quilt. He'll never live this down. He sure is cute though, in spite of his misery!Julie

Allison I love this quilt – your little baby girl will love it too for sure!! Your tutorials are always amazing too, but I came across this one the other day which is super super speedy for HST and wondered if you'd seen it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekYpJzHoW6E

This is a lovely quilt and a great tutorial! I'm not usually a pink person but these colours and patterns mix very nicely so I am now thinking of buying pink fabric!!! Amy from http://www.craftyshenanigans.blogspot.com

This quilt is so cute! I have looked at that fabric line. Now I'm going to see if I can get some…

Speaking of pink. My 5-year-old granddaughter and 4-year-old grandson are temporarily sharing a room until the new baby gets a bit bigger and then Levi will go back into his "boy" room. Charlotte's room is brown walls with white beadboard, but she has pink trim on the curtains, accessories, etc. It is driving my son NUTS. He says the room needs to be more "boy-ish." So my DIL is making some bunting out of little baseball pennants to hang on his side of the room. I guess that will "neutralize" the pink…

Just math checking — you started with a 6" square and ended with a 5" unfinished square, right? That yields a 4.5" finished square to my way of thinking when the seam allowance is taken into account. The end of the tutorial says to add 1" to your finished block size to determine the size of your starting square. I'm thinking it ought to be 1.5" to account for the seam allowances. Or would that just leave a larger margin for error when it comes to squaring things up?

Me encanta tu quilt!!!!…es inspirador…What a beautiful quilt !..I wish you will visit my new blog and you could see the quilt I made thanks to your tutorial ….http://mitallerdequilt.blogspot.mx/hugs from Mexico!

thanks so much for this tutorial…I loved it! I followed it strictly to make one for our family. I'm putting a post up today about it. I've linked to your blog…thanks again. I appreciate all the time and effort you put into this tutorial.

If you want to avoid sewing triangles completely only make one diagonal cut. Then iron them open, mark your line on one of then again, put them RST with one square rotated 90 degrees and sew on both sides of the line, cut between and presto 2 hourglass blocks. I think jenny doan did it this way if I haven't explained it well. Thanks for your fabulous blog.

I’ve just finished piecing all of the blocks in bright, primary colors, because it’s a boy!!! My niece just adopted a tiny baby boy, and I can’t wait to snuggle him in this beautiful quilt!!! Thank you for the great tutorial!

This is a charming quilt. Thank you for the tutorial. Had to comment re boys and the horror of them touching pink. I’ve never ever understood this one and mine are the same way. If women carried on about blue the way men and boys do about pink, WE would be labeled ridiculous, hysterical etc and they would not be wrong.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I used this to make my very first quilt top. After all that work, I didn’t trust myself to quilt it, so I took it to a local quilt shop where they are doing the actual “quilting”…I pick it up tomorrow. I can. not. wait. to see how it turned out!

Beautiful baby Quilt. I’m in the process of making a Pinwheel Quilt. love the pink. I’ve noticed allot of Grey used in Baby Quilts which surprised me because I would never have thought to use Grey. But they also look beautiful. Great job and thanks for sharing.

[…] also been working on a baby boy quilt that’s wrapping up here. Originally I was following this tutorial from Cluck Cluck Sew, but I was also watching the Dodgers play the World Series and well… one thing led to another […]